Kare Knits on Etsy is Now Open!!

Hi Everyone!

I am pleased to announce the Grand Opening of my Etsy store!

Kare Knits on Etsy

So I Have An Idea....

I found this really fun pattern for baby booties two weeks ago on Ravelry.com (they're adorable!), but I didn't get around to trying the pattern until last Friday morning. And when I say Friday morning, I mean 1am in the morning! I spent the week wining a dining a customer for work, and during dinner I had tea, which was a huge mistake. I couldn't sleep until 5am! So while tossing and turning, I started to toy around with the idea of selling my knitted goods online. I figure, why not make some money off of my hobby? It will help fund my knitting obsession :) And it got me thinking about that baby bootie pattern.

So I trudged downstairs and started to knit. I decided to modify the pattern a bit, so instead of two straps held together by buttons, I made it so it had one connected strap across.

They were pretty fun and easy to knit! It's definitely a lot easier than the other booties I've been knitting. Plus they take less time to knit!

Since I had this idea of selling the booties, I thought it would be good to get a few more colours. I headed over to Mary's Yarns (I'm becoming a regular! haha) and bought a few more fun colours.



Then the knitting madness began. I've made 4 pairs o far, and I've been working on figuring out how to set up a shop in Etsy. We'll see how this works out :)

More Baby Booties :)

As I mentioned in my previous post I spent this weekend knitting more baby booties. For the blue ones I was knitting, I realized I was running out of yarn while knitting the second bootie and I knew I wasn't going to finish them off. So I ended up knitting the bottoms with some remaining cream-colour yarn I had left over from the first ever booties I'd ever knit. I was a little nervous about how they would turn out, but it looks pretty good :)

For these sets, I didn't want to use a ribbon to tie around the ankle because the ribbon has to be removed whenever the booties need to be washed. I thought it would be nice if the tie was also made of washable yarn so it could all be washed together. I tried looking for some thick bulky yarn but I couldn't find any that wouldn't irritate a baby's skin (most bulky yarn is made from natural fibers, not these nice cashmere/wool blends).

Lynn from Mary's Yarns recommended that I twist together two pieces of yarn. And this is how you do it:

Take a piece of yarn (make sure you have about 3x the length you require).

Twist it the opposite direction that the treads are twisted in until the strands start to twist the opposite way.

Then slowly bring the two ends together so that the yarn strands re-twist around each other to form a thicker yarn.

I did this process twice to get the thickness that I wanted.

Knitting with DPNs

Since I was knitting what felt like a gazillion baby booties this weekend (I finished 2 pairs.. one more to go!) I thought it would be a good idea to write about knitting in a circle with double pointed needles (DPNs). It's not too hard... trust me!


Step 1 - Cast on your stitches on one DPN (or on a long set of needles with a similar needle size as the DPNs you plan to knit with).


Step 2 - divide your stitches on to 3 or 4 DPNs. Just make sure you have at least one needle to knit with (lets call this the knitting needle).

Step 3 - Take our knitting needle and inser the needle knit-wise (or if you're purling, purl-wise) through the very first stitch that was casted.

Step 4 - Complete the stitch using the yarn attached to the last stitch casted.


Step 5 - Keep knitting around in the circle.

Another way you can start knitting the circle is to slip the last stitch cast on to the knitting needle, then follow Step 3 to 5. Just make sure to put a stitch marker between the first and last casted stitch so you know where your row begins/ends :)

It's not too hard, but it may take a bit of practice to make the bridge between the first and last casted stitch are tight together.

Happy knitting! :D

Yarn Sale - The Purple Purl

I just happened to stumble upon this!

I've never been to this yarn store (but I am going to put in on my list of places to check out!), but The Purple Purl in Toronto is having a sale on yarns this weekend - 25% off in-stock items!

Happy shopping!

My First Socks (San Antonio, TX)

It's recently dawned on me that I've actually managed to mix and mingle my three hobbies: knitting (obviously!), travelling and photography :D

Those who know me know that I LOVE to travel, and I'm not talking about the travelling that involves sitting on a beach sipping Mai-Tai's. I'm all about the adventure, roaming around cities, hiking and experiencing different cultures. And each trip is made better with exploring these places with my husband of 3 years, Jimmy. Some of the most memorable trips have been backpacking around Europe during my university days, skydiving in New Zealand (for my honeymoon!), seeing Everest in Tibet and hiking the short hike in high altitude to Everest Base Camp #1, and completing the Inca Trail hike in Peru.

Photography has always been a interest of mines, but I didn't splurge on a DSLR until I planned our trip to Tibet. I view the world differently after seeing it through a lens. All I can say is, the world is a beautiful place full of wonderful textures, colours and emotion.

So how do this two hobbies tie in with knitting? Photography is easy - I love photographing the things that I knit :) And travelling? Well, it all began with a business trip to San Antonio. My work had been sending me to San Antonio quite a bit during the first half of this year. Travelling alone can get quite boring, so I would always look up places to go to before I left town, which mainly consisted of shopping/outlet malls. This time around, I thought it would be fun to check out a yarn store in San Antonio. I headed to Yarnivore, a yarn store located just outside downtown San Antonio. I ended up buying a Kertzer "On Your Toes" sock yarn (75% Superwash Wool, 25% Nylon). So with this purchase, I started a little trend - to buy yarn from the difference places I travel to! So far, I've bought yarn in France and Peru :)

For socks, you want to stick to the superwash yarns - there are no special care instructions for these types of yarns, you can simply just throw it into the washing machine. Now there are two ways you can knit socks - from the toe-up or from the top-down. After doing some research online, I found I liked the toe-up method better. The biggest pros were the fact that you can try them on as you knit (so it is guaranteed to fit your foot perfectly) and if you run out of yarn, you just end up knitting shorter/ankle socks. Imagine running out yarn when you still have the toe to knit! Oh my!

The lady at Yarnivore told me about a really good free pattern from Knitpicks for toe-up socks. The pattern uses the magic loop method (where you knit two socks at the same time with a long circular needle), but at this point I felt it was a little too advanced for me and I ended up knitting once sock at a time. I have since been knitting using the magic loop method, but that will be for a later post :) I started these socks on DPNs (US3, 3.25mm). If you're going to knit one sock at a time, make sure to keep track of the number of rows you knit so you can make a matching second sock! :)

I started with a short-row cast-on, which took me awhile to get the hang of. I think it took at least 7 attempts until I got the sock started. The must frustrating part was the fact that once I started knitting the toes, the seam that was formed by the cast-on loosened, so I had this zig-zaggy hole right at the toe. I later gave up on trying to make the toe seam perfectly tight - you can easily fix this at the end when you stitch up the ends (just use the ends to "sew" the toe seam together). To bind off, I used the sewn bind-off, which is pretty simple. You'll just need a tapestry needle. Just make sure not to bind off too tightly or you might not be able to pull up your socks or it might cut off your circulation! LoL yup, I made that mistake! That's ok! Mistakes are part of the learning process!

The hardest part of knitting socks (and following this pattern) is the cast-on/first few rows for the toes and the heel. Just make sure you pay close attention to these parts of the pattern. Try not to get too frustrated. For my first pair of socks, I actually knit 3 socks, because I found out after knitting my second sock that I make a mistake on the heel portion of the first sock. Oops!! haha :)

And thus my obsession of knitting socks began! Here are a few pics of the first pair of socks (the green one) plus other socks I've knit using this pattern:


Heel detail


Yarns from Knitpicks - Stoll Hand Painted Sock Yarn - Tea Party & Tree Fort
Needles: US 0 (2.0mm)
Yarn: 75% Superwash Merino Wool, 25% Nylon

Yarn Sale - Mary's Yarns

Attention all yarn horders! :D

I took a trip to Mary's Yarns to pick up more yarn for baby booties during my lunch break yesterday and I found out they're having a sale this week!

Sale starts tomorrow at 10:00am, and will run until Sunday :D

Friday, August 20th from 10:00-7:00
Saturday, August 21st from 10:00-5:00
Sunday, August 22nd from 12:00-5:00

Happy shopping!!

Babies Babies Everywhere!

I don't know about you, but I've been noticing a ton of pregnant ladies around recently. I went to a baby shower this weekend and I would say that I was one of maybe 3 girls there that wasn't either pregnant or have a child already. I was definitely a minority!

Since so many of my friends are preggers, I thought it would be fun to knit them some fun little gifts for their little ones. I thought I would try little baby booties. They're not too hard to knit, and you'll actually have a finished item after a few hours of knitting (which is nice!). I wanted to find a seamless bootie because I'm not a huge fan of stitching things together afterwards. I also wanted to find a pattern that allowed me to string a ribbion around the ankle, just because I think it's cute! So I hopped onto Ravelry.com and found exactly what I was looking for. You can find the pattern I used here.

Romni Wool was having a yarn sale, so Ed and I decided to make an adventure of it and venture into downtown Toronto on a Saturday afternoon. We ended up raiding the downstairs sale selection I ended up buying a ball of cream DK weight yarn, ball of blue fingering weight yarn and a ball of pink fingering weight yarn for knitting baby booties. There were no labels/I lost the labels on the balls of yarn so I can't even list that information! All I know is, it's for babies :) I also picked up some supplies for items I am planning to knit for Christmas gifts.

I started knitting with the cream fingering weight yarn. I followed the pattern exactly, using US6 (4mm) DPNs. The only thing I did different was the number of rows I knit for the top of the bootie (I didn't want to make the bootie too long).

When I knit with the blue fingering weight yarn, I used US3 (3.25mm) needles but I had to adjust the pattern to compensate for the smaller needles. This is when the fractions you learned in school come in handly! I will try to explain what I did (I hope this makes sense!!). This is where the information on the label comes in handy.

1) Look for the information that tells you how many stitches make up 1" (or a 10x10cm).

2) Based on the DK weight yarn, it requried 22 stitches to make up 10cm. Based on the fingering weight yarn, it required 27 stitches to make up 10cm. Use this ratio to calculate how many stitches you need for the fingering weight yarn. So (hooray for math!):

22    36

--- = ----

27      x

Calculate x (36*27/22 = 44.18)

3) This pattern calls for multiples of 4 (Because of the ribbing pattern for the cuff). Luckily for us, 44 is a multiple of 4, so we're good! If it wasn't a mulitple of 4, you can either round up or round down the number of stitches until the multiple that you need. This is why it is important to read through and understand the pattern if you're going to make adjustments.

So for the fingering weight, I casted on 44 stitches, knitted 25 rows of the stockinette stitch (k2, p2). The the foot shaping rows, I k27 for the set-up row. For the short rows:

*purl short rows: s1, p10, M1, turn.

*knit short rows: s1, k10, M1, turn.

Knit until 60 total stitches (or to whichever boot length you want).

For the bottom of the bootie, I had to adjust the pattern for the bottom so that:

*p5, p2tog, p16, p2tog, p5 (twice)

*k2tog, k24, k2tog (twice)

*p4, p2tog, p14, p2tog, p4 (twice)

*k2tog, k22, k2tog (twice)

*p3, p2tog, p12, p2tog, p3 (twice)

*k2tog, k20, k2tog (twice)

*p2, p2tog, p10, p2tog, p2 (twice)

*k2tog, k18, k2tog (twice)

Ok so these were not as easy to knit as I thought it was going to be. I screwed up a few times, and after unravelling my work twice (or maybe it was three... haha) I finally got a finished product!

And here are the finished results:

My First Mitts

Last Christmas I decided to venture deeper into the knitting world and try my first pattern. Since it was winter, I thought it would be neat to knit myself some new mitts.

I ventured into Lettuce Knit located downtown Toronto with Ed and her friend Jess. It was the first time I've even stepped foot in a yarn store (I won't count the time I stepped into Mary's Yarns on Main St. Unionville a few years ago to use their bathroom.. LoL). I used to buy my yarn from Michaels, and wow! Yarn store.. so much better! I ended up buying two balls of Rowan Little Big Wool yarn, and a ball of Noro yarn that I thought would make a fun long lace scarf and a set of double pointed needles (DPNs)

I downloaded a Bulky Mitt pattern from Ravelry.com and here's where the fun began, because I soon realized I had made some rookie mistakes.

1) The yarn gauge didn't match what was listed in the pattern

2) Should have listened to my friends at the store and bought stitch markers

Now I know these are not huge misakes, but looking back I think it for a first-time pattern knitter, it would have been easier if I found the pattern first and bought the right gauge yarn. Needless to say it was fun trying to figure out how to adjust the pattern for the yarn gauge while trying to figure out the pattern :). The stitch markers would have been helpful to mark the start of the row and where the location of the thumb gussets were. I improvised and used twist ties (they kept getting caught in the yarn though... but it served its' purpose!)

Knitting mitts are quite easy is definitely a great way to start knitting patterns (if you are sick of knitting scarves like I was!). The hardest part was knitting in a circle with DPNs and figuring out how to do the thumb gusset.

I was quite happy with my mitts :) The only problem is, the mitts let in a lot of air - which doesn't quite cut it for Canadian winters. If you are loose knitter (like me), it would be better to go down a few needles sizes so the stitches are tighter.

Here's a picture of the finish product... plus the lace scarf I knit with the Noro yarn:

Some Quick Links

Most knitters know about these sites but I thought I would post them up anyway. There are two sites that I just absolutely love, and I think are great for both new and advanced knitters:

Ravelry.com - Excellent knitting website! You can get a ton of free patterns from here. Account set-up is required, but it's free to sign up :)

Knitpicks.com - You can purchase good quality yarns, and it's not too expensive! Great deal if you live in the US - free shipping with purchases over $50 (but not so good for Canucks like me..). Site also has great knitting tutorials.

The Beginning

I've decided to start a little knitting blog at the semi-start of my knitting career. I'll explain the "semi" part in a minute. I've been obsessed with knitting over the past year or so, and I have my dear friend Ed to thank. I feel like I have embarked on this knitting adventure and I thought it would be nice to share it with the virtual world. It's always nice to have someone come along for the ride!

I have been knitting since I was 8 years old. I was in Grade 3 and my teacher started a knitting club. I joined for 3 reasons:
1) I enjoyed being a teachers pet. Yes, I was one of those kids! Hey now, don't judge!
2) My mom knits. I thought it would be a nice mother/daughter bonding activity.
3) My grandma knits (like a pro! she's amazing!)

So I guess it's safe to say I'm a 3rd generation knitter :) The first article I knit was a blue scarf for my dad - just straight knit stiches all the way. It didn't look too bad except for the extra stitches I added after the first 8-9 rows :S But my dad wore it like a pro :)

It's funny how my current status of knitting obsession started. One of my BFFs (Ed) told me about how she wanted to knit a scarf for her younger sister. During an overnight shopping trip, we bought a pair of needles and a ball of yarn and I taught her how to knit in our dingy hotel room. And that was it, she was hooked! Through a friend of hers who also loved to knit, she dove into a knitting world that I never knew existed, and she brought me along with her!

So here we are... present day! Up until last year all I knit were scarves. This is the reason why I call this time period a "semi-start" period because last Christmas, for the first time, I got up the nerve to try a pattern. More about that on my next post!

There are so many "knitting" things I would like to try and I feel as if I've only touch the surface. Right now I'm completely addicted to knitting socks. I'm slowly working my way up to bigger items (vests, sweaters), and eventually I would like to venture into dying and spinning my own yarn.

This is going to be fun! :D